Bob Marshall Wilderness: Movies

Our videos are finally done!  

We had a night at one of our home churches Griner, and showed the video and told stories about the trip.  here follows the videos that summarize our Hiking Trip.  I hope you enjoy them.

Part 1: Prologue - Chapter 2

Part 2: Chapter 3 - Epilogue

Picture Slideshow

Bob Marshall Wilderness: Chapter 5 & Epilogue

Aug / 11/ 17

Morning came fast and before we knew it, our last day of adventure had begun. Jon was feeling better than yesterday morning but still not great. We believe he got a bit of food poisoning from our summer sausage that didn’t get the end cut off. We made our final breakfasts and began to pack up camp, when “the fishermen” passed by our camp bright and early, and with no acknowledgment of our existence once again. In all honesty, Dwylin would not have had that any other way.

A little while later “the girls” passed us and all of them had jackets on, but it was a chilly morning. It just made us more nervous about getting back in the water. Not long after, followed the “mountain men”, but we need to describe at least one of these guys. I thought they had a shirt under his hat so that it would hang over his neck and protect it from bugs or the sun. As we got closer, we realized that this was not the case. He had himself a big old beard and hair down below his shoulders and the friend with him was your standard bearded guy with longer than average hair. Anyways, these guys also passed us down the river.

We looked around our surroundings and found burned trees and cliffs on both sides. The light reflecting off the water was a welcome sign of a good day to come. Off in the distance, we heard a low rumble that kept increasing in volume as we got further down the river. “I don’t know, that sounds rough,” Jon said with a smile. He continued to say this nearly every time he heard rapids off in the distance.

We finished packing up camp and headed down the river for the last time. One thing we neglected to mention from our last post was that only one guy managed to flip his boat during our first day on the river. Matt ended up flipping twice on the trip, but in all seriousness, it wasn’t his fault. He weighs roughly around 155 lbs spread out over the length of the boat, but with a 45 lb. bag in the front of the raft. So if there is anything I know about weight distribution… this isn’t a good mix.

We managed to record a video of Matt flipping, but there was no audio, but it is still fun to watch.

Dwylin was the only other one to flip his boat, and gratefully, nobody got it on video. We headed off the end of a waterfall with about a one-foot drop. The current would drag you back into the waterfall and you would start taking on water if you didn’t have enough speed to get through the current. First, Caleb didn’t make it through the current and was taking on water. Dwylin was following close behind and also wasn’t able to make it through. Basically, Dwylin decided that if he nailed Caleb at full speed, there may be a chance he can't get out of the current, and he was proving to be right. Unfortunately for Dwylin, he was unable to save himself and took a tumble in the cold water. He jumped up out of the water with a big gasp for air and from the shock of the cold water. He guided his boat to the shore and stood there for a while to catch his breath and to cool off his temper.

We headed down the river again we could hear something faint in the distance, “I don’t know, this one sounds pretty rough” Jon said. Dwylin stayed in the back of the group paralyzed with silence.

We approached the next set of rapids, and boy, were they ROUGH. Our group had been tackling the rapids one person at a time. Dwylin was one of the last to roll through the rapids, and something happened to him that made everyone wish they had a camera rolling. Dwylin's boat took a turn in the rapids that was much sharper than he wanted. He ran ashore on a rock, and the current kept pushing him down the river. So Dwylin’s raft turned around backward, and before he knew it. The raft was now flowing down the rapid backwards, and Dwylin feeling totally out of control took his paddle and started pumping up and down in the air. This motion resembled a weightlifter doing a bench press. (This motion basically represented his total lack of control in this situation, and he identified that) As he continued down the river, backward, he went down another drop in the water level. Dwylin, who had not put his paddle in the water since he spun around, was still content to make it through the rapids without paddling. Miraculously his boat turned around for the second time while in the rapids and Dwylin made it through this experience unscathed.

We came up to some small rock cliffs that had some ledges and the guys decided to stop and jump off. Landon, Dan, Nate, Matt, and Caleb were jumping in. Matt jumped in the water and right as he jumped into yelled out, “I love you Linda.”
(HEY, CONSIDERING THAT I WAS THE ONLY ONE ON THIS TRIP THAT DOESN’T SPEAK DUTCH… I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANYONE COMPLAIN ABOUT TRANSLATION DIFFICULTY.) Every now and then Dan will do something just beyond his skill level and saw one of those today… watch and see.

It didn’t take long for us to keep on moving and after a few more bumpy areas, we found “The Cliff”. Dan, Jon, Nate, and Matt all decided to jump off, but no one was able to jump off. Dan kept looking like he was gonna jump but just couldn’t do it. So, to ensure that everyone would jump off all the guys agreed to a bet. If one failed to jump off, that meant he owed the others $15 each. Jon and Dan switched places in line and Jon jumped off first. Followed by everyone else, and no money switched hands because of this.

There is a pullout point for the rafts, about two miles from where our cars were parked. Some of the guys have been saying the whole trip that they would like to float the whole way to the end. If you pull out where everyone else pulls out you have a two-mile hike ahead of you. Now, if you keep going down the river you’ll find that the river narrows and that the rapids turn from class 1-3 and after you pass the pullout point it becomes a class 4 and above. Matt, Jon, Landon, and Dwylin pulled out and Dan, Caleb, and Nate continued on down the river, with no life jackets or helmets, basically asking to be killed.  They gave plenty of warning for all those that wanted to continue on down the river.

The four walkers started walking up the path with our bags repacked. As soon as we started walking uphill Dwylin’s left leg seemed to be tight and unable to extend fully. We would find out, after the trip, that Dwylin’s knee was slightly out of the socket. Landon’s shoes were soaked and decided to walk the two miles back in his flip flops. While walking back on the path we ended up seeing our three amigos rafting down the river. Getting in and out of their boats to check the rapids to see if they were too rough to go through.

At one spot Dan was headed down the river and saw that he was heading towards a rock wall so he bailed and grabbed on to the rocks and ended up climbing out as his boat kept going downstream. When Dan jumped out, his boat flipped and kept going downriver. Eventually, we found it stuck in a Whirlpool still upside down. The only problem was that the boat was about 20 feet below them. Caleb managed to find a 20-foot long stick from a tree, and Nate used it to get the boat away from the whirlpool. Once it was out it headed back down the river to a point where Dan was waiting for it. Standing there with his feet on both sides of the river. He waited for the boat to get between his legs and went to grab for it, but the boat was dragged on down the river and out of Dan’s reach. Dan ran after it again and the boat got caught by a rock. When Dan caught up to it again, the raft, seemingly with a mind of its own, managed to escape his grasp once again. So, he had no other choice but to run off down the river. He got in front of the boat and found an underwater shoreline that he could stand on so he jumped in the water and grabbed his boat. This is a story you just wished that you could see it in person, but we have the next best thing. That's right we have a video and we added music to it.

The other group of guys finished their hike back to the trucks and started to clean up. Most changed into new clothes and just wanted to clean their feet. Jon found a used 24 pack of water in his truck and did we ever enjoy that watery feeling. There was just a totally new appreciation for the simple treasures in our lives, but something else caught my eye. It was some sort of structure off in the distance. It had four brick walls and a metal door with a lock on the inside, and a beautiful commode on the inside. Do you want to know the best part was? It had a concrete floor!!! No brush or branches around or even worse animals ready to catch you in a moment of weakness, but this was another step closer to heaven. OK, I may have over emphasized how amazing this restroom was, but for a restroom, it wasn’t too bad.

We were at the trucks for about 20 minutes when our brothers from down under showed up told us about their adventures. They brought up Dan’s experience and how he lost his jacket and some socks, but left with his life. This was a good trade and we all laughed together and reminisced on our trip experiences. We got ourselves in a circle and prayed together one last time thanking God for providing us with safety and also allowing us to get ourselves in precarious situations so we could find joy in the mistakes that we all made. After all, it’s not the safety of our experiences that make lives epic and interesting. It's pushing through the hard moments and reaching your goal at the end. Much like our Christian lives we aren’t meant to live these safe lives with no adversity, but lives of action. Moving in a moment's notice at God’s command, and making it to our reward at the end. Taking our experiences and scars with us all the way to the end. All of this creates the epic story of our lives and our chance to see God working through all of it. Do I wish I wouldn’t have had my knee pop out or a ton of blisters on my feet… yes! I wish that, but I wouldn’t trade that story for what actually happened.

Epilogue

Aug/ 11/ 17 - Aug/ 13/ 2017

We split up from here Dan and Jon headed back to Plains, and the rest of us headed to Indiana. It was about a two-hour drive just to get out of the dirt roads, and another hour and a half to get a cell phone signal. At this point, we all started to receive oodles of messages from family and friends. Nate or Caleb managed to turn this into a competition. Nate ended up with around 16, Matt with about 12, Caleb ended around 22, Landon UNKNOWN, Dwylin got last with 1.

We got ourselves out onto the pavement again and stopped along the road to talk with Dan about how we should leave. Splitting ways was just another punch in the gut that our trip was rapidly coming to an end. We had to head back to Browning, MT to return our rafts. We got there as the sun was fading away, and then stopped at a local subway for the best footlongs of our lives!

Landon started by driving from the park to Browning and then Nate took over for a few hours. Dwylin drove after that so that the others could rest. I feel that Dwylin did a great job driving through the darkness of night while everyone else was asleep, said an anonymous occupant of the truck. (It could have been Dwylin that said this. Technically, he was an occupant in the truck.) However, even the greatest of people can have a moment that can bring him back to reality. For Dwylin it was driving around 90 mph and having a deer cross the road in front of him. It wasn’t as dramatic of an experience as it could have been. Dwylin started to realize how he wasn’t as alert as he thought he was.

Landon took over next and we found ourselves driving on the freeway that passes Sturgis, SD. This could easily be considered the Mecca of motorcyclists. A small town in the middle of nowhere gets ravaged by thousands of bikers and their RVs and Trucks for two weeks. People will do whatever it takes to get their bike to and from Sturgis. From here all the way to Chicago we surrounded by bikes and trailers that were heading home.

What is something that should happen on every trip? SHAMELESS SINGING! By the time we reached Iowa, we were bored enough that we started singing the greatest hits of our Alaska trip and sending them to Jon back in Montana. This was causing laughter hard enough to make our sides hurt. Here is a sampling of it.

We got back to Dan’s around 2 AM on Sunday morning, and I went home and showered and soaked my feet in Epsom Salt and went to bed around 3 and slept a solid 9 hours. Matt drove left with Nate and Caleb to go to Ohio to see his fiance. Caleb was dropped off at a hotel in Fort Wayne, where his parents happened to be staying that night. Matt was dropped off pretty close to 6:50 at Linda’s house, and Nate finally made it home at 7:30. Just in time for his family to get up for church that day, but Nate would not accompany them. However, back in Indiana, we found out that Landon did indeed go to church that morning. Making my parents ask me why I decided not to attend. Thanks a lot Landon.

TWO WEEKS LATER

Aug/ 26/ 17

All of us were able to see each other again at Matt and Linda’s wedding. As with any group of guys, there were no pictures taken to prove it. Jon and Dan were groomsmen and Dwylin was Matt’s personal server and “First Alternate” *wink. Caleb showed up as a guest because he happened to go on the trip with us, and that still makes me laugh. Landon was there as well helping park cars and to enjoy the festivities.

Now that Matt is married our adventures as a group will definitely slow down, and we understand that. We gave him our blessing anyway, but what choice did we have. I mean he really likes her after all.

This now concludes our adventure from the Bob Marshall Wilderness…

hopefully in the next few weeks, I’ll be able to finish the videos for you all to see but here is a gift to hold you over till then…

Our Trailer Video

Bob Marshall Wilderness: Chapter 4

Aug/ 10/ 17

When you get woke up by someone rushing out of your tent at 2ish in the morning, one could hope for at least one thing… is he leaving early to start breakfast? How nice of him... Hurl, barf, puke, upchucking, whatever you want to refer to it as; it doesn’t matter. The unwelcome sounds of our comrade “losing his biscuits” was just plain unwelcome to us all. Quietly someone had to be thinking, what could cause him to spew, and who could be next? Jon and his technicolor yawn subsided, and the rest of us were able to slowly fall back asleep.

Usually, us guys slept with relative ease, but wow, was it ever cold. Most of us had Mummy Sleeping bags along for the trip. These sleeping bags are very compact and do very well in the cold. If you got out of your sleeping bag during the night, it wouldn’t take more than a minute and your teeth would start to chatter, and you would get right back in that bag.

Morning did eventually arrive and with it came a decision. Dwylin our 85 year old had a real dilemma in front of him. To stay lying in bed or to tackle the great adventure of trying to stand and try to stay standing. The cold weather along with blisters and the ever-increasing stiff joints were really wreaking havoc on this guy. On the bright side, however, the last 12 hours of joint pain would be the worst that Dwylin would have to experience on our trip.

There was no sense of rush to head out that morning with the hiking behind us and floating before us. Also, we didn’t want to leave until closer to 10 or 11 so the water would have plenty of time to warm up for us.

We headed out for the day around 10:30, with the current as our guide. All we could hope for was a peaceful float down the river and we basically had that except for the occasional hidden rock that would nail your derriere at Mach speed. Every once and awhile you would be talking with someone, and all of a sudden, their progress down the river would end because they jammed into a rock.

Other than occasional places that you needed to get out and walk beside your boat, which if there was a strong current could be a chore, we would stop on occasion to see if we could find some fish, and usually with no luck. Nate and Caleb caught the majority of the fish this way. if I remember right, but I can’t be 100% certain. We were able to take a picture of Nate catching a small fish in the water. The fish ended up getting away, but we didn’t care. After all, it was a pretty small fish and would have been a small meal.

As we continued down the river we kept coming up on new people. First, we passed a group of four or five girls. Right after we passed them we found a nice rock to jump off of and a nice area to fish, but I don’t recall catching anything. A little later, we passed the same group of girls, while they were eating lunch. One of them yelled out, “Do you guys have any beer?”, and Dan replied by saying no. “That would be a lot of weight to carry around,” Dan added. The girls reacted to that comment by asking if we had whiskey? We just laughed and kept going on our way down the river. Dwylin actually did have a flask with him, but it was filled with spicy olive oil. We didn’t think it was necessary to bring this up to these strangers.

There were others that we came across, and we gave most of the group nicknames. We had names like the girls, the fishermen, and mountain men. Our next story will feature the fishermen, and just to make you aware these definitely were not the friendliest group of guys that we have ever met. These guys just ignored us and never said a word to us.

Now, do you know how strong current works, while you’re in a small boat? You have very little choice on where you’re going, for the most part. Well, one of our funnier stories to reminisce on is when Dwylin accidentally ran his boat into one of these guys while they were fishing. The fishermen had a dog sitting in the back of his boat. His boat looked like this.

We came rushing quickly on a rapid where this clown was standing there in our way, with his boat trapped in place with his legs holding on to it. He was in line with the current so that all of us would probably get within five feet of him. Nate was one of the first to go down and just barely avoided the guy, and Dwylin was next. O yea, this guy was standing there fishing, which meant we needed to avoid his hook as well. Unlike Nate, Dwylin absolutely nailed this guy’s raft and apologized while this guy never said a word. Dwylin nervously tried to paddle his boat away from his boat, but…

Well, let’s change to Dan’s perspective. Dan was already past this part of the river and described what happened next as hysterical. “All I heard was a dog yelping, so I turn around and saw Dwylin paddling away. When Dwylin put his paddle in the water to start his getaway. He accidentally didn't have it in the water deep enough and splashed the fisherman's dog. Dwylin’s head was now looking down, covered with embarrassment and remorse. No one else felt this way, and they all were quietly laughing at what happened. Mostly cause the other guys wished that they could have done the same to this roadblock that was in our way.

The day ended uneventfully with us just trying to find a campsite, but most of them were already were taken up with other campers. We ended up going about 15 to 17 miles that day, with roughly 8 miles left to go.

We got our boats out of the water and quickly discovered that the contents of our bags were soaked. So it became a rush to get our wet stuff out of our bags and upon a tree before the sun went down. 

Our next objective was to set up our tent for the night, but mostly so that some of the guys could play pocket rockets. The guys who were not playing poker decided to head to bed early, but as we laid there, we started feeling raindrops. Don’t forget that we usually slept without the canopy on the tent so we could cover our bags. We were told that in Plains, Montana, it had not rained for the six weeks before our trip. If you don’t remember, that is where Dan & Jon’s family is from. Either way, it started to rain, so we quickly ran out of the tent to get our tarp off the bags and back on top of the tent. Still, now we had another problem, our bags were going to wet. So we brought them into the tent during the storm and waited for the storm to pass. This didn’t make much sense to me personally. We had pulled out of the river with our bags being wet and tomorrow we’re going right back in the water. So why worry if the bags get wet again tonight, but I’m no doctor.

We are ready to be done, and with only one night left, we will miss this adventure once were gone. 

Bob Marshall Wilderness: Chapter 3

Aug/ 9/ 17

If I were to say that all of us aged about ten years by the morning, would you believe me? I would probably say that Dwylin has reached the ripe old age of 60 by now. Looking back, the morning had a few memorable moments. Some of us went down to the lake to get water, and to collect our laundry. It is just too bad that most of the clothes hadn’t dried completely yet.

Walking back up to the camp you could see breakfast being made with our burners because you still can’t have any fires. Warm water is a must if you want coffee or Mountain Houses, and with very little heat otherwise you’ll find the propane burners to be a great source of hand warmers as well.

The realization of how separated from the world we are has started to set in. How no one can get information about us, and we have no way to find out what has happened back home. All while eating our breakfast's that won’t expire until 2047!!! I know, awkward transition…

It’s time once again to pack up and head out, but we can’t leave till we get Dwylin bandaged up. We have figured out a basic way of keeping him moving, and it only involves 4 band-aids. Along with ibuprofen, which is increasing in amount by the day. Jon has also made an appearance on the disabled list. I can’t remember if his feet got burned when he fell asleep while fishing on his boat or if he just got boring old blisters. The first story is funnier, so let's just agree to have that be the “real story”. Jon in an effort to dilute the pain of his burns had a great plan of wrapping his feet in toilet paper to create a buffer between his feet and shoe.

We started our 5 miles for the day, but before our sore feet could even loosen up we saw wildlife. I don’t know the difference between what kinds of animals we saw or didn’t see. So excuse me for not knowing what it was, and we also don’t have a picture. Either way, we soon continued on our way and headed back to the fork in the road from the day before.

We walked past two ranchers leading a bunch of horses back up the trail. This was always a treat to stare at, or maybe we just longed for the horses to take our packs and gives us a ride.

Just around the corner from the ranchers, we walked into a real problem. WATER! Water on our hike was usually accompanied by a bridge or its just a creek with rocks to walk on. Dwylin may or may not have used his bandaged feet to his advantage, and we decided to go back and take another path.

Somewhere in this area we walked up on this random cast-iron box on a tree, and Nate decided to open it up, and to our surprise, it was a phone. One that you would have needed to wind up in order work, but it looked like they disconnected the line some time ago. Nate picked up the phone and said, “Hello operator, get me the diner.” Then, if that is not enough, he continued quoting Barney Fife reciting a poem to his “Dear Lovely Juanita” into the phone.

It wasn’t more than three minutes later and we had to go uphill, and it seemed to be straight up. This was followed by what seemed to be 2 miles of being on top of this plateau surrounded by small trees that were just above your eye level. We finally cleared and could see a valley accompanied by the river again.

We thought the dust was bad on day one, but it was so much worse today. Everyone ended up spreading out of about an eighth of a mile. Matt, Nate, and Dwylin leading with Caleb and Landon somewhere in the middle while Dan and Jon fell far back for a while.

Finally, we reached an open space, and we all got back together in one big group. We stopped for a nice break from walking and someone suggested a group picture. Nate took the picture on a timer for us and it was a great picture. The way Nate reacted to getting a picture was pure comedy, and you should just ask someone that was there to describe it to you. This also ended up being the only group picture that we took for the whole trip.

In this particular area, there were some massive trees around us. Now, once again I don’t pretend to know what trees are what. (OK, so I don’t know much… hey, I know you all are thinking it) The funny thing is we kept seeing more of these trees and out of nowhere Nate said, “Cedars of Lebanon!”. Oh, Nate, so simple and yet such outstanding humor. Nate also gave one of the trees a big ole hug, and Jon eventually joined in.

We got off the path and found a perfect place to set up camp, but there was one issue. Someone else had set up for camp already and he also had horses. Now, we must blow up our rafts and go out on the river, and find ourselves another campsite. We were not out on the river long, maybe 20 minutes, and we found a great spot for camp.

We landed at our newly appointed campsite, and it seemed almost perfect. There was sand for our tent to rest on and some great scenery to admire. So the guys started to eat our snack food, like crackers, bars, and Jon got out the summer sausage (remember that, it will come into play in our next post.)

Our five-mile hike didn’t take long at all, about two and a half hours if I recall correctly. Which isn’t bad compared to 12 miles in 8 hours.

Being that we found our camp, roughly around 1. That meant we had plenty of time to waste the day away. Fishing is what most started doing, and we spread out over the river. Dan got his fly fishing rod out, but *SPOILER ALERT* we never caught a fish during the whole trip with that thing. Nate ended up catching about 60% of our fish, and that became a joke of ours. How does Nate always catch fish?

Once everyone got back to base Dan couldn’t find his sandals and those are a premium relic around here. Some of the guys got a plan to go back and find the sandals and raft back down the river. Just before they left Dan found his sandals in his bag or somewhere, and the guys were too excited and left anyway.

Dan, Dwylin, Landon, and Jon stayed behind and cooked some fish. One problem for Dwylin was with how stiff he was, there were very few places for him to sit down. While trying to figure out the best way to sit down, Dwylin spun once and then a second time. Reminding the guys of a dog getting ready to take a dump.

While waiting for the others to return, we found a squirrel that required our attention. The first one escaped our rocks, but we ended up with a good laugh. (Later that night Matt hit a squirrel out of the tree with a rock.) Once again while sitting there doing nothing Dan and Jon saw a cave across the river as well as a big rock that they wanted to stand on. So they went across the river and Dwylin and Landon stayed back and began pumping for water.

As Landon and Dwylin were watching everything Dan and Jon were going up on the hill. We noticed that they were on all fours trying to get over some loose rocks. (We don't have any good pictures of that though, but we do have a video!!!)

At the same time when Dan and Jon reached the top, Caleb, Matt, and Nate, who had just returned from rafting, headed up the cliff as well. Later Jon showed us some pictures from above and showed us what needed to be crossed if you wanted to go up on top of the rock… NO THANK YOU! When Matt got up to the top he thought this to himself, “Hey, maybe this wouldn’t be a good idea. I mean, after all, I am getting married in 17 days.” (This is just a paraphrase of Matt's thoughts. No one actually knows what Matt was thinking at the time, but we’re pretty sure Linda was involved somehow.)

The five of them were on the other side of the river for maybe an hour, and it didn’t take long for us to hear roaring laughter and loud banging. Oh boy, what could they possibly be destroying now? Rocks! Apparently, it's fun for the soul if you roll a rock down a hill and try to jump out of the way while being 25 miles away from the nearest car… but don’t take my written word for it. Watch it yourself, we have a video right here.

Once the five began to cross the river they discovered that there were some fishermen that had passed by our camp to fish and we all got to experience the loud banging and laughter of our rock rolling friends from across the river. Our boys discovered that the water was much colder than before, and some of the guys were hiking up their shorts. One could almost say that they had very colorful speedo’s on, but why would they want to draw that attention upon themselves.

As the crew came back across the river. Dwylin was hard at work setting up his phone for a nice sunset video, and it only took 5 minutes to set up some rocks to a good enough point. So that the phone was in a proper angle, but… First, our fishing friends came back and stood right in front of the camera, and once they left Dan walked over to Dwylin (RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA) and sat down. By now the fishermen had passed and the video attempt had become a joke as Matt and Nate began showing off their stretching skills to the camera.

Some of the Magnificent Seven went into the tent to start playing pocket rockets as the sun got lower, but the game didn’t last long. It was noticeably the coldest night of the trip already. The sun hadn’t even completely fallen yet. Dwylin whose joints had began to seize up once again got up to head for the tent, and let out a groan for every step. Dan uncaring, but more than willing to comment on age, said that he’d hate to see Dwylin when he gets old.

Lets just end this right there, as we begin to fall asleep in the Arctic Circle of the Montana Wilderness. What will the next day bring? I’m sure it will bring HURLS of excitement as we head down the river.

Bob Marshall Wilderness: Chapter 2

Aug/ 8/ 2017

BEFORE BED LAST NIGHT:

Anonymous: “I ain't worried about my alarm, because I’ll get up at 6:30, No question.”*

(*- PROBABLY NO ONE WILL ACTUALLY ADMIT TO SAYING THIS… BUT I KNOW SOMEONE DID [I think it was someone from Montana.]) Also, this statement was paraphrased.

There was a rule we all agreed to as we laid down to sleep last night… NO FARTING! “If you need to fart, then get your hind end out of here.” I don’t think I've ever slept in a tent that was better suited for ventilation then this tent. Every night before bed, we would gather everyone's stuff together and put it under the tent canopy. You may have guessed by now, that means our tent was uncovered and all that was between us and the bugs of this world was a layer of mesh at the top of the tent. This would have been a massive plus at night for stargazing, but unfortunately, with forest fires only a few hours drive away. Most of the stars were deemed invisible to our eyes behind the smoky haze above our night time resting spots.

Once morning arrived, and everyone decided to loosen up and get our stuff out of the tent. Someone got up and headed for the tent entrance, and stuck his rump out the door and gave a fart. “OK, that's not what we meant!” Someone said.

Before our trip began Jon bought a water purifier. If you never had to use a pump for clean water before, have you lived? I submit that you have not! Let me explain how long this process took. If you need water you were gonna need to sit there and pump for a good 5 minutes. Once you had finished, you would be tired enough that you would start to drink that water… and a small tear would roll down your check once you realized that you had to start all over again.

It didn’t take long for us to seemingly see Dwylin age before our eyes. By this morning, one would think Dwylin was the ripe old age of 50. We wondered how he was going to react to walking another 8 miles today. He continued this way until we started our hike when his feet would loosen up. Dwylin took 3 band-aids and two Ibuprofen or as our friend Bruno from Ohio calls them, “Ibua-profain”.

We made our breakfast, packed up and headed out around 9:30 am for another 8 miles of hiking. We all agreed on a few ground rules as we left, we needed to drink more water, and rest more, as well as eat more during our hike. Then off in the distance, we heard a HOWLLLLL!!! but not just one, but a couple of them. Dan looked up ominously from packing his bag and said, “wolves”. Dan guessed that they were within a half-mile of our campsite. This, of course, made Dwylin, who was at least 45 years old by now, even more nervous about the day ahead.

Winding in and out of the hills and valleys we made a good pace for ourselves. We found animal paw prints and fresh scat all over the pathway that we were navigating around. The views were huge and wide and at moments there was major vegetation and steep hills. Our pace wasn’t just good, but it seemed to be absolutely spectacular. We ended up going 8 miles in 3¼ hours, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

The first couple miles didn’t have much to offer for memorable dialog, and indeed most of the hiking was that way. Each day of hiking we passed people on the trail on their way back. Every once and awhile we would get information out of them and try to figure out how much farther we had to go.

Finally, we reach that day's destination, Big Salmon Lake was here and so was everyone else! We must have seen around 20 people at or walking through this point of the trail. I distinctly remember someone with an Australian or New Zealand accent, but it didn’t take long for most of them to head on out. We had made it 20 miles by this point and it didn’t take long for the bags to come off and for some of the boys to start playing “Pocket Rockets” (Poker).

Poker is a favorite travel game for some of the boys, but playing with rocks instead of chips made the games more fun to watch (playing with only 10 rocks really made the games go faster). The baby of the group, Caleb, had never played poker before, and usually, this means quick defeat unless your name is Caleb. Apparently, it is just as effective to be lucky instead of being good. One of the early hands Caleb bet all the way through to the end with only Landon in his way. He threw the cards down certain of defeat, but everyone playing yelled in surprise. Apparently, he had a straight and didn’t know it! Which was good enough to win that game.

This was the first place on our trip that the smoke added to the surroundings. The lake is 5 miles long and was absolutely gorgeous. Most of the guys decided that the fishing on the shore of the lake was not good enough. So everyone but Dwylin got their pack rafts out and we had our first experience of blowing up the rafts. It was a surprisingly very simple process and the boys made their way around the lake to find fish.

Now while everyone one was out in the lake fishing, Dwylin stayed by camp to “heal his joints”. Dan kept looking into the shore and noticed that Dwylin, who we thought was going to swim and heal up, was just standing waist-deep for at least a half-hour. (Dwylin may or may not have been afraid of the cold water, but who's to say.) In due time the fishermen got back to shore, but they couldn’t see Dwylin anywhere. Then they heard a voice from somewhere saying, “Did you catch anything?” Looking around, all that could be seen was a lone head protruding from the water. It was indeed the head of Dwylin. The water was a lot warmer then the river was the night before, but all in all Dwylin couldn’t stop shivering. By the time he got out of the water, our best guess is that he was in the water for a good hour.

Talking and laughing helped the evening progress nicely. Otherwise not a lot of other memorable things happened to my knowledge, I’m afraid. As the evening continued no one could decide if we wanted to use the tent or not. Finally, three hero’s stubbornly decided to set up the tent, but there was literally only one place we could put the tent. Everyone got in and went to bed, and let it be known, the only thing harder then the ground we slept on has to be concrete!

Bob Marshall Wilderness: Chapter 1

Aug / 7 / 2017

BEEP!!! BEEP!!! BEEP!!! was the sound that most of us are greeted with at 4 AM Monday morning. Most of us just pressed our snooze button until 4:20 AM when Dwylin woke everyone by walking out of the restroom. It wouldn’t take long after that until the entire group would get up and get ready to go. It was around 5 AM when we all hopped in our trucks and left for our 2 and a half-hour drive up into the wilderness.

Most of the guys weren’t hungry, because we had enjoyed a massive meal the evening before. It also didn’t help that we never saw any breakfast places after leaving the gas station. That was our first mistake because most of us started our hike on basically an empty stomach.

The drive up was filled with dirt roads and great scenery and one random guy in the middle of the road wearing PJ’s and “SUNGLASSES”. Please keep in mind that this was still around 6 AM and with almost no sunlight. If you want to read into the situation, go ahead, but we never stopped to ask him any questions.

Finally, we ended up reaching our parking area where we left behind our trucks and head out on foot for 25 miles and 5 total days in “The Bob”. Remembering that we’re heading into a “WILDERNESS”; all seven of us grabbed hands and each of us said a prayer. We started with Matthew went around the circle and ended with Dwylin praying. After that special time, we headed out… after Nate told everyone that they should stretch.

We made it around a mile and a half and something started to happen that we didn’t expect. No one told us that the path was going to have that much dust. Most ended up walking beside the path instead of on it. Another observation was shouted out by Dwylin, from the back of the group… Dan! I was promised minimal hills.” Dan just laughed, as we continued UPHILL.

Probably a half mile later we came upon a sign, welcoming us to the park. Part of the sign was missing, and Dan said that he’d almost bet anything that it was a bear. This experience was followed by Matt taking out his knife, and carving something into the back of the sign… L+M inside of a heart.

(If you're not aware. Matt is getting married to Linda Miller just 2 weeks after our trip is over… and he is very happy about it. In fact, he ended every prayer on our trip by jumping in at the end of the prayer, and saying out loud “thank you for making Linda so awesome”. Even if he wasn’t the one that was praying.)

We continued on seeing great views and soon enough hiking up and down. Every once and a while we had to cross a creek and hope we didn’t fall in or at the very least get our feet wet. Wet Shoes + Wet Socks = Blisters or in reality Loose Shoes = Blisters.

We kept on hiking, making good time, as far as we could tell. Making it about 8 miles before the heat started getting to us, and it got to Dwylin first.

(Lets go back two or three years before this trip. There was a forest fire in the valley we’re hiking in now. Many trees are standing but very charred and with no comfort of shade. We came to learn very quickly that direct sunlight gets very hot very quickly, and without sunlight, it gets chilly very quickly. On the bright side, however, if you still have sunlight. You can dry your clothes on rocks quickly, because of the lack of humidity.)

OK, you're up to speed. We finally, for the first time that day, rested and snacked on some bars that we had brought with us. After that, we started walking again, but the damage had already been done! Some of us could immediately tell that our strength and stamina had taken a hit. We ended up stopping about 3 times by the time we got to the rangers station 2 miles away (10 miles total for the day). After resting in the grass by the ranger's cabin we figured out that we needed to go at least 2 more miles for a good camping spot, but we weren’t getting any closer by just sitting around. To make matters worse, Dwylin’s walking had already started to slow. Everyone knew why he was having trouble... BLISTERS.

Two miles later we started to receive hope… campsites! It sounds like rest to me! The only problem was that we had to find a spot cleared enough for a tent. Boy, were we ever happy for deciding at the last minute to bring that tent along. Between our tent and the water of the river was a valley of slippery rocks, maybe 30 feet of it… but if you asked the guys with blisters it might as well have been the Grand Canyon. Every step onto a rock you thought was secured and firmly in place, was instead a cruel joke, probably God’s way of making us more thankful for the river that we eventually got to.

Everyone got to the river at some point and got their feet wet, either cleaning their hair or to get below the water to shock their aching joints and sore shoulders (the water was FREAKISH-LY COLD). Afterward, some of the guys went fishing, and others got camp ready, and because of how dry Montana has been this summer, there was Stage 1 Fire Ban. Basically, that just means that no one is allowed to have a campfire, but propane fires are allowed for the time being (no sparks to set pine needles aflame). It didn’t take long after that for our “Mountain House” meals to get passed around. If you don't know what those are… Google it! Amazing for camping trips!

The evening basically ended with us back down by the water, skipping rocks, but of course, it turned into a competition. I believe one time, they had to skip the rock only once across the river, but the rock thrown could not skip past the halfway point of the river… you know stuff like that.

The exact time people started heading for bed escapes me at this moment, but there was plenty of daylight left. That didn’t matter to anyone, because we hiked 12 miles in 8 hours. We were spent and we still needed to walk 8 miles the next day and another 5 or 6 after that. This, however, concludes our first day of hiking.  Until we begin again, you'll just have to sit and wait for it!